Play Guess Who – Building Relationships
A good classroom dynamic is key to a successful teaching environment. When students get to know each other in fun ways, it can help create an atmosphere where students engage and learn with each other based on deeper personal connections. During the first weeks of school, Ms. Washington uses “Guess Who?” quiz, using Socrative’s Short…
Sharalike – Capture and Share Classroom Moments
It’s nearly summer and now is the perfect time to capture those final moments of your school year: field trips, student presentations, field days, recitals, etc. Our friends at sharalike have built an awesome photo sharing app! They’re the next generation of online slideshow creation — designed as a free, fun and simple way to…
Week 1 Activity – Help Students Learn About Their School
There are always lots of new things to remember at the start of a new school year – changes in classrooms, in rules, in school staff. Both teachers and students need to get familiar with these changes fast. To help students get familiar with what’s new, consider starting the year with a multiple choice Socrative…
Just in Time! Thinking Routines Templates: Choose Your Own Adventure
While putting the final touches on a lesson plan, I was struck with a decision about the class-ending activity. I know students will have questions and concerns about the readings and projects. I wanted the freedom and flexibility to choose the culminating activity in the moment. What could I do? I imported all 3 thinking…
See, Think, Wonder – Making Thinking Visible
Harvard’s Project Zero has created learning routines based on research, helping teachers garner a more thorough thinking process from students. See, Think, Wonder, is one such routine that engages students in visual multimedia such as pictures or videos. This concept can easily be delivered using Socrative: design an image-based quiz focussing on these 3 questions:…
Create a Virtual Time Capsule with Socrative
In third grade, my classmates and I brought a wide range of items to school that signified the time in which we were living. There was a black Sony walkman with padded headphones, a GI Joe figure, a Hartford Courant newspaper, a copy of Shel Silverstein’s poem “Messy Room” and a video cassette of Goonies….
In Defense of Multiple Choice
The value of multiple choice in education has been a topic of debate since its invention in the beginning of the 20th century. Initially, the US army constructed this type of assessment as a means for determining intelligence for recruitment (Ramirez, 2013). Provided this social validity, the test quickly spread to education and industry sectors,…
The 5Ws and H – Questions, Questions, Questions!
The infamous 5Ws and H have been an integral part of journalism, storytelling, and an uncountable number of TV police dramas (Law and Order being the best, of course). For years this structure has been helping students ask targeted questions as they dig deeper into factual information and uncover truths. In the 21st century, this…